Meg Whitman took home $15.4 million in 2012

Meg Whitman, who took over the firm from Leo Apotheker in 2011, was paid out around $15.4 million last year, despite HP suffering a net loss in the first year she was in charge.

In November the company announced that it was taking an $8.8 billion writedown, including $5 billion on the value of Autonomy, which it bought for $10 billion in 2011.

A federal proxy filing, posted late last week, and obtained by Reuters showed that the business woman received a mere $1 in basic salary wages. However, she had her fill with a $1.7 million bonus, while HP stock options and stock awards made up the rest of her pay packet.

Whitman is attempting to resurrect the company with reforms – including cutting around 29,000 jobs over the next two years – to reverse a previous corporate decision to spin off HP’s PC division. The sum she received was 70 percent of her proposed earnings.

Executives, who saw their pay cut as a result of a 39 percent stock drop, as well as poor sales of HP’s tablets and laptops, are also sure to be spitting feathers at the lightness of their wallets.

In July 2012 the company posted an $8.9 billion loss for the third quarter, blaming some of it on a $13.9 billion acquisition of EDS in 2008. In its full year earnings for 2012, the company said its net revenue of $120.4 billion was down five percent from the prior-year period, while the fourth quarter, net revenue of $30billion was down seven percent.

It said the losses were as a result of poor sales in hardware, services and printing revenue.